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Metaphysics

met-uh-FIZ-iks
Also Known As First Philosophy Aristotle's own term for the study of being as such, prior to and more fundamental than physics.
Metaphysics

The branch of philosophy that asks what there fundamentally is: the nature of being, substance, causation, time, identity, and the relationship between mind and matter. Aristotle called the subject prote philosophia, first philosophy, because he took the study of being as being to underlie every other inquiry. Central and recurring questions include whether universals such as redness or humanity exist independently of the particular things that have them, whether the world is at bottom one substance or many, what makes an object the same object over time, and whether free will is compatible with a world governed by cause and effect. Metaphysics is deliberately the most abstract branch: its questions cannot be settled by observation alone, which is exactly why philosophers from Parmenides through Kant to contemporary analytic metaphysicians have kept returning to them by argument.

Facts
Disputed
Key Debate
Free will versus determinism: libertarians defend genuine alternative possibilities incompatible with universal causal determination, hard determinists deny that any freedom worth wanting survives if determinism is true, and compatibilists hold that freedom and determinism are not in conflict once freedom is properly defined as acting on one's own desires and reasons. 1
Whether human choices are ever free in a sense incompatible with universal causal determination remains unsettled among philosophers who otherwise agree on the physics.
Key Debate
What most fundamentally exists: a plurality of individual substances bearing properties, as Aristotle held; a single infinite substance under two attributes, as Spinoza argued; or whether the very category of a self-standing thing dissolves on inspection, as Nagarjuna's doctrine of emptiness and the Dao's own namelessness both suggest, from unrelated traditions arriving at a similar dissolution. 2
Beyond disagreement over what exists, some twentieth-century philosophers rejected metaphysical inquiry's legitimacy altogether. The Vienna Circle logical positivists held that metaphysical statements, being neither analytic and a priori nor empirical and synthetic, fail their verification principle and are therefore cognitively meaningless rather than merely false; see the attached dissent.
Central Question
What is there, and what is it like to be it: what kinds of things exist, and what makes something real rather than merely apparent? 1
Key Debate
The problem of universals: medieval scholastic philosophers debated whether general concepts like humanity or triangularity exist as real entities in things themselves (realism), only as mental concepts (conceptualism), or only as words (nominalism), a dispute turning on how the mind achieves universal knowledge from finite particular experience; the realist via antiqua was eventually challenged by the nominalist via moderna associated with William of Ockham. 1
Metaphysics
Filter Results38 entries
FAQs

What is the problem of universals, and why did medieval philosophers divide over it?

Medieval philosophers disagreed about whether general concepts like humanity or triangularity are real things, only mental concepts, or only words, a dispute about how a mind with only particular experiences ever reaches universal knowledge.

Medieval scholastic philosophers debated whether general concepts such as humanity or triangularity exist as real entities in the things themselves, a position called realism, exist only as concepts in the mind, called conceptualism, or exist only as words, called nominalism. The dispute turned on how the mind achieves universal knowledge starting only from finite particular experiences. The realist position associated with the via antiqua was eventually challenged by the nominalist via moderna associated with William of Ockham, and the same three-way division still frames how philosophers think about abstract concepts today.
Connections

Associated With

Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Includes

Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Duns Scotus
Source Wikipedia: Elselijn Kingma
Emanuel Swedenborg, Philosophers

Correspondence theology is a metaphysical claim about the relation between the natural and spiritual worlds.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Source Emmanuel Levinas (Wikipedia)
Epicurus, Philosophers
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Source Frank Cameron Jackson, Wikipedia
Source Franz Brentano (Wikipedia)
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Gabriel Marcel (Wikipedia)
Source Gaudapada (Wikipedia)
Source Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: George Berkeley
Source George Santayana (Wikipedia)
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Gilles Deleuze (Wikipedia)
Source Giordano Bruno (Wikipedia)
Gorgias, Philosophers
Source Gorgias (Wikipedia)
Source Graz School (Wikipedia)
Source Hans-Georg Gadamer (Wikipedia)
Source Henri Bergson (Wikipedia)
Source Heraclitus (Wikipedia)
Source Ibn Arabi - Wikipedia

Wikipedia files this principle under metaphysics (identity and individuation); the same lead-section sentence is reused as the branch citation since the article does not carry a separate one-sentence field label.

Source Identity of Indiscernibles (Wikipedia)

Illuminationism (hikmat al-ishraq) is a metaphysics of graded, self-luminous levels of being and light, Suhrawardi's alternative to Peripatetic ontology.

Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Islamic Peripateticism (falsafa mashsha'iyya) continues Aristotelian metaphysics (being, substance, causation) within an Islamic intellectual context.

Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Wikipedia: István Aranyosi
Source Wikipedia: J. L. Mackie

Jain Philosophy's core positions (anekantavada/many-sidedness, substance-mode ontology, the nature of the soul/jiva) are fundamentally metaphysical.

Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Jan Faye, Philosophers
Source Wikipedia: Jan Faye

Being and Nothingness is a phenomenological ontology of consciousness and freedom.

Source Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Source Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Wikipedia
Source John Dewey (Wikipedia)
Source John McDowell (Wikipedia)
Source Jonathan Bennett (philosopher), Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia: Jose Ferrater Mora
Source Jose Vasconcelos (Wikipedia)
Source José Zalabardo (Wikipedia)
Source Josiah Royce (Wikipedia)

Showing 51 to 100 of 205 in Includes, page 2 of 5.

Open Questions

In the Other Atlases

Influenced By

Also in Divinity Atlas: which influenced this subject.

Source Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos und Platon (Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism)Walter Burkerttier 1
Sources
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Information
  • entry: Metaphysics
  • s.v. Metaphysics
  • s.v. Free Will
  • entry: The Medieval Problem of Universals, Introduction
    How do we know, for example, that the Pythagorean theorem holds universally, for all possible right triangles?
  • Includes: Plato
  • Includes: Aristotle
  • Includes: Platonism
  • Includes: Rene Descartes
  • Includes: Meditations on First Philosophy
  • Includes: Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Includes: Transcendentalism, s.v. Transcendentalism
  • Associated With: Aristotle, entry: Aristotle's Metaphysics
  • Associated With: Immanuel Kant, entry: Kant's Metaphysics
  • Associated With: Baruch Spinoza, entry: Baruch Spinoza
  • Includes: German Idealism
  • Includes: Being and Nothingness
  • Includes: Essays: First Series
  • Includes: Essays: Second Series
  • Includes: Phenomenology of Spirit
  • Includes: Representative Men
  • Includes: Sartor Resartus
  • Includes: The American Scholar
  • Includes: The Myth of Sisyphus
  • Includes: Kyoto School
  • Includes: Nishida Kitaro
View the Source
2. Vienna Circle (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySection 3.1
Quote, Section 3.1
synthetic statements failed testability in principle they were considered to be cognitively meaningless (lacking evaluatability of their truth) and to give rise only to pseudo-problems
View the Source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.View the Source
Jean-Paul Sartre (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Includes: Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Includes: Existence Precedes Essence
View the Source
Albert Camus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Includes: Albert Camus
  • Includes: The Absurd
View the Source
Arthur Schopenhauer (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Arthur SchopenhauerView the Source
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Includes: Samkhya, entry: Sankhya, Introduction
Quote, Includes: Samkhya, entry: Sankhya, Introduction
Sankhya (often spelled Samkhya) is one of the major orthodox (or Hindu) Indian philosophies.
View the Source
Ship of Theseus (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: The Ship of Theseus, Introduction
Quote, Includes: The Ship of Theseus, Introduction
If no pieces of the original remained in the current ship, was it still the Ship of Theseus?
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Problem of Universals (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Includes: Problem of Universals, Lead section
    The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes.
  • Includes: Problem of Universals, Lead
    The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes: "Should the properties an object has in
View the Source
Identity of Indiscernibles (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Includes: Identity of Indiscernibles, Lead section
    A form of the principle is attributed to the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
  • Includes: Identity of Indiscernibles, Lead
    The identity of indiscernibles is an ontological principle that states that there cannot be separate objects or entities that have all their properties in common.
View the Source
Teletransportation Paradox (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Teletransportation Paradox, Lead section
Quote, Includes: Teletransportation Paradox, Lead section
It was formulated by Derek Parfit in his 1984 book Reasons and Persons.
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John Dewey (Wikipedia)
Includes: John Dewey, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: John Dewey, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of education, epistemology, journalism, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, metaphysics
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Donald Davidson (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Donald Davidson, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Donald Davidson, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of language, philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, epistemology, ontology
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Slavoj Žižek (Wikipedia)
Includes: Slavoj Žižek, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Slavoj Žižek, Infobox: main_interests
Ideology, Marxism, ontology, political theory, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, film theory, theology, German idealism, dialectic
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Gilles Deleuze (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Gilles Deleuze, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Gilles Deleuze, Infobox: main_interests
Aesthetics, history of Western philosophy, literary theory, metaphilosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, social philosophy, psychoanalysis, semiotics (film semiotics)
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Democritus (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Democritus, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Democritus, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics
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Lucretius (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Lucretius, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Lucretius, Infobox: main_interests
Ethics, metaphysics, natural philosophy, atomic theory
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William of Ockham (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: William of Ockham, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: William of Ockham, Infobox: main_interests
Natural philosophy metaphysics epistemology theology logic ontology politics Theological voluntarism
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George Santayana (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: George Santayana, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: George Santayana, Infobox: main_interests
Moral philosophy, political philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion
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Peter Abelard (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Peter Abelard, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Peter Abelard, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, logic, philosophy of language, theology
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Anaximander (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Anaximander, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Anaximander, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, astronomy, geometry, geography
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Willard Van Orman Quine (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Willard Van Orman Quine, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Willard Van Orman Quine, Infobox: main_interests
Logic, ontology, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, set theory
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Saul Kripke (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Saul Kripke, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Saul Kripke, Infobox: main_interests
Logic (particularly modal) Philosophy of language Metaphysics Set theory Epistemology Philosophy of mind History of analytic philosophy
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Josiah Royce (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Josiah Royce, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Josiah Royce, Infobox: main_interests
Ethics, philosophy of religion, metaphysics
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Moses Mendelssohn (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Moses Mendelssohn, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Moses Mendelssohn, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics · Philosophy of religion
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Anne Conway (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Anne Conway, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Anne Conway, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, Monism
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Alvin Plantinga (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Alvin Plantinga, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Alvin Plantinga, Infobox: main_interests
Epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, logic, modal logic, philosophy of science, natural theology
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Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Judith Jarvis Thomson, Lead
Quote, Includes: Judith Jarvis Thomson, Lead
Judith Jarvis Thomson (October 4, 1929, November 20, 2020) was an American philosopher who studied and worked on ethics and metaphysics.
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A. J. Ayer (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: A.J. Ayer, Lead
Quote, Includes: A.J. Ayer, Lead
The work's dismissal of metaphysics, and endorsement of emotivism was the cause of much controversy and debate.
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Alfred North Whitehead (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Alfred North Whitehead, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Alfred North Whitehead, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, Mathematics
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Henri Bergson (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Henri Bergson, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Henri Bergson, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, studies of immediate experience
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Hans-Georg Gadamer (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of language, Language, Ontology, Aesthetics, Hermeneutics
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Emmanuel Levinas (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Emmanuel Levinas, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Emmanuel Levinas, Infobox: main_interests
EthicsmetaphysicsontologyTalmudtheology
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David Lewis (philosopher) (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: David Lewis, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: David Lewis, Infobox: main_interests
LogicPhilosophy of languageMetaphysics EpistemologyEthics
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Michael Dummett (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Michael Dummett, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Michael Dummett, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of mathematics Philosophy of logic Mathematical logic Philosophy of language Metaphysics History of analytic philosophy Voting theory Theology
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Peter van Inwagen (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Includes: Peter van Inwagen, Infobox: main_interests
    Metaphysics Philosophy of religion Philosophy of action
  • Includes: Consequence Argument, Article text
    Van Inwagen's central argument (the consequence argument) for this view is that "If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past.
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Thales of Miletus (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Thales, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Thales, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy
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Pythagoras (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Pythagoras, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Pythagoras, Infobox: main_interests
Ethics, Mathematics, Metaphysics, Music theory, Mysticism, Politics, Religion
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Parmenides (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Parmenides, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Parmenides, Infobox: main_interests
Ontology, poetry, cosmology
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Zeno of Elea (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Zeno of Elea, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Zeno of Elea, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, ontology
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Melissus of Samos (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Melissus of Samos, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Melissus of Samos, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics
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Leucippus (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Leucippus, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Leucippus, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, cosmology
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Gorgias (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Gorgias, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Gorgias, Infobox: main_interests
Ontology, epistemology, rhetoric, moral relativism
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Giordano Bruno (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Giordano Bruno, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Giordano Bruno, Infobox: main_interests
Cosmology, natural philosophy, metaphysics
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Kaṇāda (Wikipedia)
Includes: Kanada, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Kanada, Infobox: main_interests
:Metaphysics :Ethics :Physics
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Al-Kindi (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Al-Kindi, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Al-Kindi, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy, Islamic theology (kalam), logic, ethics, mathematics, cryptography, physics, chemistry, psychology, pharmacology, medicine, metaphysics, cosmology, astrology, music theory
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Franz Brentano (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Franz Brentano, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Franz Brentano, Infobox: main_interests
Ontology Psychology
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Alexius Meinong (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Alexius Meinong, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Alexius Meinong, Infobox: main_interests
Ontology, theory of objects, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, value theory
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Nelson Goodman (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Nelson Goodman, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Nelson Goodman, Infobox: main_interests
Logic, epistemology, metaphysics, induction, counterfactuals, mereology, aesthetics, philosophy of science, philosophy of language
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Hajime Tanabe, Wikipedia
Includes: Tanabe Hajime, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Tanabe Hajime, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion
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Gabriel Marcel (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Gabriel Marcel, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Gabriel Marcel, Infobox: main_interests
Ontology, subjectivity, ethics
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Marsilio Ficino, Wikipedia
Includes: Marsilio Ficino, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Marsilio Ficino, Infobox: main_interests
Theology, astrology, metaphysics
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Ibn Arabi - Wikipedia
Includes: Ibn Arabi, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Ibn Arabi, Infobox: main_interests
Sufism, Tafsir, Epistemology, Ontology, Poetry, Fiqh
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Theophrastus (Wikipedia)
Includes: Theophrastus, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Theophrastus, Infobox: main_interests
Ethics, grammar, history, logic, metaphysics, natural history, physics, botany
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Paul Grice - Wikipedia
Includes: Paul Grice, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Paul Grice, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of language Semantics Pragmatics Metaphysics Epistemology History of philosophy
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David Kaplan (philosopher), Wikipedia
Includes: David Kaplan, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: David Kaplan, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of language, logic, metaphysics, epistemology
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Frank Cameron Jackson, Wikipedia
Includes: Frank Jackson, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Frank Jackson, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, meta-ethics
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Wikipedia: J. L. Mackie
Includes: J.L. Mackie, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: J.L. Mackie, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics, philosophy of religion
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R.G. Collingwood (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: R.G. Collingwood, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: R.G. Collingwood, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics Philosophy of history Aesthetics
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Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Alexander Baumgarten, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Alexander Baumgarten, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics
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Kendall Walton (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Kendall Walton, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Kendall Walton, Infobox: main_interests
Aesthetics, ontology, philosophy of language, fictionalism
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Wikipedia: Jaegwon Kim
Includes: Kim Jaegwon, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Kim Jaegwon, Infobox: main_interests
Action theory (philosophy), Action theory, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of mind, Philosophy of science
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Wikipedia: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Includes: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, Sufism, Islamic philosophy
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Wikipedia: Samuel Ramos
Includes: Samuel Ramos, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Samuel Ramos, Infobox: main_interests
IdentityMetaphysics EpistemologyEthics
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Wikipedia: Tadeusz Kotarbinski
Includes: Tadeusz Kotarbinski, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Tadeusz Kotarbinski, Infobox: main_interests
Ontology, formal logic, ethics, praxeology
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Timothy Williamson, Wikipedia
Includes: Timothy Williamson, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Timothy Williamson, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics
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John McDowell (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: John McDowell, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: John McDowell, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of perception, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of mind, ethics, meta-ethics
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Jonathan Bennett (philosopher), Wikipedia
Includes: Jonathan Bennett, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Jonathan Bennett, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics
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Danielle Macbeth, Wikipedia
Includes: Danielle Macbeth, Lead
Quote, Includes: Danielle Macbeth, Lead
Danielle Monique Macbeth (born 1954, Edmonton) is a Canadian philosopher whose work focuses on the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and the philosophy of logic.
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Wikipedia: C. D. Broad
Includes: C.D. Broad, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: C.D. Broad, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, logic
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Wikipedia: Jan Faye
Includes: Jan Faye, Lead
Quote, Includes: Jan Faye, Lead
Jan Faye is a Danish philosopher of science and metaphysics.
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Wikipedia: Wesley C. Salmon
Includes: Wesley Salmon, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Wesley Salmon, Infobox: main_interests
Confirmation theory, philosophy of science, metaphysics
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Wikipedia: Alexander Bird
Includes: Alexander Bird, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Alexander Bird, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, metaphysics, epistemology
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Timothy Morton, Wikipedia
Includes: Timothy Morton, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Timothy Morton, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, realism, ecocriticism, object-oriented ontology, Buddhism
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Antonio Escohotado, Wikipedia
Includes: Antonio Escohotado, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Antonio Escohotado, Infobox: main_interests
Liberalism, metaphysics, culture, ethics, freedom, history of communism, sociology, drugs, politics, dialectic, Marxism, fractal, drug liberalization, history of commerce, political philosophy, history of slavery, law
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Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Wikipedia
Includes: Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Infobox: main_interests
Logic, ontology, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, ethics.
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Wikipedia: Lucilio Vanini
WikipediaIncludes: Lucilio Vanini, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Lucilio Vanini, Infobox: main_interests
Metaphysics, science, religion
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Wikipedia: Nick Zangwill
WikipediaIncludes: Nick Zangwill, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Nick Zangwill, Infobox: main_interests
Aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic, meta-ethics
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Keith Campbell (philosopher) (Wikipedia)
Includes: Keith Campbell, Lead
Quote, Includes: Keith Campbell, Lead
Keith Campbell (1938-12 October 2024) was an Australian philosopher working in metaphysics.
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Steven French (philosopher) (Wikipedia)
Includes: Steven French, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Steven French, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of science, philosophy of quantum physics, metaphysics
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Wikipedia: Anton Marty
WikipediaIncludes: Anton Marty, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Anton Marty, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of language, psychology, ontology
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Wikipedia: Elselijn Kingma
WikipediaIncludes: Elselijn Kingma, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Elselijn Kingma, Infobox: main_interests
Philosophy of medicine, Ontology of pregnancy
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Wikipedia: Syed Abdul Sayeed
WikipediaIncludes: Syed Abdul Sayeed, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Syed Abdul Sayeed, Infobox: main_interests
existentialism, ontology
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Wikipedia: István Aranyosi
WikipediaIncludes: István Aranyosi, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: István Aranyosi, Infobox: main_interests
philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, metaphysics
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Wikipedia: Bill Brewer
WikipediaIncludes: Bill Brewer, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Bill Brewer, Infobox: main_interests
philosophy of mind, metaphysics, epistemology
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José Zalabardo (Wikipedia)
Includes: José Zalabardo, Lead
Quote, Includes: José Zalabardo, Lead
José Zalabardo (born 1964) is a Spanish-British philosopher who works on epistemology, metaphysics, and related areas.
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Didier Kaphagawani (Wikipedia)
Includes: Didier Kaphagawani, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Didier Kaphagawani, Infobox: main_interests
Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics
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Graz School (Wikipedia)
Includes: Graz School, Theories
Quote, Includes: Graz School, Theories
The Graz School developed much of Meinongs theories that covered various topics such as philosophical psychology, metaphysics, semantics and philosophy of language, theory of evidence, possibility and probability, and value theory as well as the analysis of emotion, imagination and abstraction.
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Speculative realism (Wikipedia)
Includes: Speculative Realism, Lead
Quote, Includes: Speculative Realism, Lead
Speculative realism is a movement in contemporary Continental-inspired philosophy (also known as post-Continental philosophy) that defines itself loosely in its stance of metaphysical realism against its interpretation of the dominant forms of post-Kantian philosophy (or what it terms "correlationism").
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Wikipedia: Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i
Includes: Allameh Tabatabai, Infobox: main_interests
Quote, Includes: Allameh Tabatabai, Infobox: main_interests
Epistemology, hadith studies, Islamic metaphysics, mysticism, ontology, tafsir, Quranic exegesis
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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Abstract
Quote, Includes: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Abstract
on English and German Romanticism, Neoplatonism, Kantianism, and Hinduism, Emerson developed a metaphysics of process, an epistemology of moods, and an “existentialist” ethics of self-improvement.
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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Thomas Aquinas
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Thomas Aquinas, Abstract
Quote, Includes: Thomas Aquinas, Abstract
treats most of the major sub-disciplines of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of nature, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophical theology, the philosophy of language,
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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Ayn Rand
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Ayn Rand, Abstract
Quote, Includes: Ayn Rand, Abstract
This philosophy is in the Aristotelian tradition, with that tradition’s emphasis upon metaphysical naturalism, empirical reason in epistemology, and self-realization in ethics.
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Karl Popper (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Karl Popper, Page categories: MetaphysiciansView the Source
Denis Diderot (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Denis Diderot, Page categories: OntologistsView the Source
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Bonaventure
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Bonaventure, Abstract
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that tradition in his development of a logically rigorous series of epistemic, cosmological, and ontological arguments for the First Principle.
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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Duns Scotus
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Duns Scotus, Abstract
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But beyond this, as Scotus himself pointed out, the metaphysical ramifications of his thesis threaten to “destroy all philosophy.” By this, he means Aristotle’s thought, which did
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Anaxagoras (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Anaxagoras, Page categories: Ancient Greek metaphysiciansView the Source
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Richard Rorty
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Richard Rorty, Abstract
Quote, Includes: Richard Rorty, Abstract
governing metaphors of mind and knowledge in which the traditional problems of epistemology and metaphysics (and indeed, in Rorty’s view, the self-conception of modern philosophy) are rooted.
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Gaudapada (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Gaudapada, Page categories: OntologistsView the Source
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Mulla Sadra
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Mulla Sadra, Abstract
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Mulla Sadra made major contributions to Islamic metaphysics and to Shi’i theology during the Safavid period (1501-1736) in Persia.
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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, Abstract
Quote, Includes: Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, Abstract
Suhrawardi provides an original Platonic critique of the dominant Avicennan Peripateticism of the time in the fields of logic, physics, epistemology, psychology, and metaphysics.
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Heraclitus (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Heraclitus, Page categories: Ancient Greek metaphysiciansView the Source
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Maimonides
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Maimonides, Abstract
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limits of human knowledge and the questionable foundations of significant parts of astronomy and metaphysics.
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Voltaire (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Voltaire, Page categories: French metaphysiciansView the Source
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Anselm of Canterbury
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Anselm of Canterbury, Abstract
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He is most famous in philosophy for having discovered and articulated the so-called “ ontological argument ;” and in theology for his doctrine of the atonement.
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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: George Berkeley
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: George Berkeley, Abstract
Quote, Includes: George Berkeley, Abstract
is best known for his early works on vision ( An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision , 1709) and metaphysics ( A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge , 1710; Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous , 1713).
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Baron d'Holbach (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Baron d'Holbach, Page categories: OntologistsView the Source
Zhang Zai, Wikipedia
Includes: Zhang Zai, Lead
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He is best known for laying out four ontological goals for intellectuals: to build up the manifestations of Heaven and Earth's spirit, to build up good life for the
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Wikipedia: Jose Ferrater Mora
Includes: Jose Ferrater Mora, Infobox: main_interests
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Applied ethics, animal ethics, metaphysics
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Wikipedia: Michel Weber
WikipediaIncludes: Michel Weber, Lead
Quote, Includes: Michel Weber, Lead
personal and social well-being, but it cannot do this, he argues, if it renounces its traditional metaphysical obligation (rooted in pre-Socratic speculation) to understand the cosmos.
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Reiner Schürmann (Wikipedia)
Includes: Reiner Schürmann, Lead
Quote, Includes: Reiner Schürmann, Lead
Meister Eckhart, and contemporary continental thought, Schürmann developed a radical critique of metaphysical and political first principles (what he called "anarchy of being and action") culminating in analyses of broken
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Timothy Chambers (Wikipedia)
Includes: Timothy Chambers, Lead
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His research interests include Hilary Putnam, time travel, the Ontological Argument, the Doomsday Argument and the semantics of vagueness.
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Peter Menzies (philosopher) (Wikipedia)
Includes: Peter Menzies, Lead
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He specialized in metaphysics, especially the philosophy of causation.
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Compatibilism (Wikipedia)
Includes: Compatibilism, Lead
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Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent.
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Zeno's Paradoxes (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Zeno's Paradoxes, Lead
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Zeno devised these paradoxes to support his teacher Parmenides's philosophy of monism, which posits that despite people's sensory experiences, reality is singular and unchanging.
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Lazy Argument (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Lazy Argument, Lead
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(Ancient Greek: ἀργὸς λόγος) is an attempt to undermine the philosophical doctrine of fatalism by demonstrating that, if everything that happens is determined by fate, it is futile to take any kind of
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Master argument (Wikipedia)
Includes: Master Argument, Lead
Quote, Includes: Master Argument, Lead
The master argument is George Berkeley's argument that mind-independent objects do not exist because it is impossible to conceive of them.
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Nicholas of Cusa (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Nicholas of Cusa, Article text
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which Nicholas finished writing on 12 February 1440) that he had chosen to write on this metaphysical topic because of a shipboard experience of divine illumination while on the ship returning from this mission to
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Jose Vasconcelos (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIncludes: Jose Vasconcelos, Article text
Quote, Includes: Jose Vasconcelos, Article text
Finally, between 1931 and 1940, he tried to consolidate his proposals by publishing his main topics organized in three main works: Metafísica ('Metaphysics'), Ética ('Ethics'), and Estética ('Aesthetics').
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Wikipedia: Sylvia Wynter
WikipediaIncludes: Sylvia Wynter, Article text
Quote, Includes: Sylvia Wynter, Article text
Wynter has since written numerous essays in which she seeks to rethink the fullness of human ontologies, which, she argues, have been curtailed by what she describes as an over-representation of (western bourgeois) Man as
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Anaximenes of Miletus (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Includes: Anaximenes, Infobox: main_interests
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Metaphysics Natural philosophy
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Wikipedia: Vasilis Politis
WikipediaIncludes: Vasilis Politis, Lead
Quote, Includes: Vasilis Politis, Lead
Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Aristotle and the Metaphysics. 2004. doi:10.4324/9780203647424.
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Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir (Wikipedia)
Includes: Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir, Lead
Quote, Includes: Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir, Lead
Ásta is predominantly concerned with metaphysics, the philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.
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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Cheng Yi
Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIncludes: Cheng Yi, Opening summary, ontological substance
Quote, Includes: Cheng Yi, Opening summary, ontological substance
Cheng Yi asserted a transcendental principle (li) as an ontological substance.
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Open Questions (1 open question)
Are human choices ever free in a sense incompatible with universal causal determination?

Libertarians, hard determinists and compatibilists disagree not only on the answer but on what freedom would have to mean for the question to be answerable at all, so the dispute has not converged even as physics and neuroscience have advanced.

What would resolve this A settled account of whether the laws of physics are genuinely deterministic at the level that matters for choice, combined with an agreed definition of the freedom moral responsibility requires, would resolve it; neither is settled.
Metaphysics, philosophy of action, physicsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dissenting Readings (2 dissenting readings)
Key Debate

Metaphysical statements about what most fundamentally exists are not merely false but cognitively meaningless: since they are neither analytic and knowable a priori nor genuinely testable against experience, they fail the verification principle and amount to pseudo-problems rather than genuine claims about the world. On this view the entire debate over substances, attributes and the reality of things is, strictly speaking, not a debate philosophy can settle, because none of the positions expresses a proposition with determinate truth conditions.

A dissenting reading, from an independent laneVienna Circle (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key Debate

Pereboom argues from hard incompatibilism that neither libertarian free will nor the compatibilist redefinition rescues the kind of desert-grounding freedom moral responsibility has traditionally required: if determinism is true no one is ever truly free in that sense, and even if indeterminism is true, the resulting randomness does not confer it either, so both libertarians and compatibilists are answering the wrong question.

A dissenting reading, from Derk PereboomStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Information
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